A Review of the Use of Science and Adaptive Management in California's Draft Bay Delta Conservation Plan (2011) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
Summary
Summary
Pages 1-8
The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.
From page 1... ...
The Delta supplies water from the state's wetter northern regions to the drier southern regions and also serves as habitat for many species, some of which are threatened and endangered. The restriction of water exports in an attempt to protect those species together with the effects of several dry years have exacerbated tensions over water allocation in recent years, and have led to various attempts to develop comprehensive plans to provide reliable water supplies and to protect the ecosystem.
|
From page 2... ...
2 A Review of California's Draft Bay Delta Conservation Plan FIGURE 1. The Sacramento‐San Joaquin Delta in California. San Francisco Bay, an integral part of the system, is just to the west. SOURCE: Reprinted, with permission, from Lund et al. (2010) . Copyright by Public Policy Institute of California.
|
From page 3... ...
CRITICAL GAPS IN THE SCOPE OF THE DRAFT BDCP At the outset of its review, the panel identified a problem with the geographical and hydrologic scope of the draft BDCP. The BDCP aims to address management and restoration of the San Francisco Bay Delta Estuary, an estuary that extends from the Central Valley to the mouth of San Francisco Bay.
|
From page 4... ...
The central issue is to what extent the BDCP is only an application for a permit to incidentally take listed species, and to what extent it also is designed to achieve the two co-equal goals of providing for a more reliable water supply for the state of California and protecting, restoring, and enhancing the Delta ecosystem specified in recent California water legislation. To obtain an incidental take permit, it is logical to identify a proposed project or operation and design conservation methods to minimize and mitigate its adverse effects.
|
From page 5... ...
. It also is not clear whether and how the draft BDCP incorporated the analyses for the Delta Risk Management Strategy and the framework developed by the Interagency Ecological Program related to factors affecting pelagic organism decline.
|
From page 6... ...
ADAPTIVE MANAGEMENT Numerous attempts have been made to develop and implement adaptive management strategies in environmental management, but many of them have not been successful, for a variety of reasons, including lack of resources; unwillingness of decision makers to admit to and embrace uncertainty; institutional, legal, and political preferences for known and predictable outcomes; the inherent uncertainty and variability of natural systems; the high cost of implementation; and the lack of clear mechanisms for incorporating scientific findings into decision making. Despite all of the above challenges, often there is no better option for implementing management regimes, and thus the panel concludes that the use of adaptive management is appropriate in the BDCP.
|
From page 7... ...
The panel further concludes that the BDCP developers could benefit significantly from adaptive management experiences in other large-scale ecosystem restoration efforts, such as the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Program. The panel recognizes that no models exactly fit the Delta situation, but this should not prevent planners from using the best of watershed-restoration plans to develop an understandable, coherent, and data-based program to meet California's restoration and reliability goals.
|
From page 8... ...
Yet the panel underscores the importance of a credible and a robust BDCP in addressing the various water management problems that beset the Delta. A stronger, more complete, and more scientifically credible BDCP that effectively integrates and utilizes science could indeed pave the way toward the next generation of solutions to California's chronic water problems.
|
Key Terms
This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More
information on Chapter Skim is available.